The Proposals
The chorus which celebrated the antiquity of her lineage, had been
ringing all night in the ears of Miss Brindle-mew Grimalkin Phoebe
Tabitha Ap-Headlong, when, taking the squire aside, while the visitors
were sipping their tea and coffee, "Nephew Harry," said she, "I have
been noting your behaviour, during the several stages of the ball and
supper; and, though I cannot tax you with any want of gallantry, for
you are a very gallant young man, Nephew Harry, very gallant--I wish I
could say as much for every one" (added she, throwing a spiteful look
towards a distant corner, where Mr Jenkison was sitting with great
_nonchalance_, and at the moment dipping a rusk in a cup of
chocolate); "but I lament to perceive that you were at least as
pleased with your lakes of milk-punch, and your bottles of Champagne
and Burgundy, as with any of your delightful partners. Now, though I
can readily excuse this degree of incombustibility in the descendant
of a family so remarkable in all ages for personal beauty as ours, yet
I lament it exceedingly, when I consider that, in conjunction with
your present predilection for the easy life of a bachelor, it may
possibly prove the means of causing our ancient genealogical tree,
which has its roots, if I may so speak, in the foundations of the
world, to terminate suddenly in a point: unless you feel yourself
moved by my exhortations to follow the example of all your ancestors,
by choosing yourself a fitting and suitable helpmate to immortalize
the pedigree of Headlong Ap-Rhaiader."
"Egad!" said Squire Headlong, "that is very true, I'll marry directly.
A good opportunity to fix on some one, now they are all here; and I'll
pop the question without further ceremony."
"What think you," said the old lady, "of Miss Nanny Glen-Du, the
lineal descendant of Llewelyn Ap-Yorwerth?"
"She won't do," said Squire Headlong.
"What say you, then," said the lady, "to Miss Williams, of
Pontyglasrhydyrallt, the descendant of the ancient family of----?"
"I don't like her," said Squire Headlong; "and as to her ancient
family, that is a matter of no consequence. I have antiquity enough
for two. They are all moderns, people of yesterday, in comparison with
us. What signify six or seven centuries, which are the most they can
make up?"
"Why, to be sure," said the aunt, "on that view of the question,
it is no consequence. What think you, then, of Miss Owen, of
Nidd-y-Gygfraen? She will have six thousand a year."
"I would not have her," said Squire Headlong, "if she had fifty. I'll
think of somebody presently. I should like to be married on the same
day with Caprioletta."
"Caprioletta!" said Miss Brindle-mew; "without my being consulted."
"Consulted!" said the squire: "I was commissioned to tell you, but
somehow or other I let it slip. However, she is going to be married to
my friend Mr Foster, the philosopher."
"Oh!" said the maiden aunt, "that a daughter of our ancient
family should marry a philosopher! It is enough to make the bones of
all the Ap-Rhaiaders turn in their graves!"
"I happen to be more enlightened," said Squire Headlong, "than
any of my ancestors were. Besides, it is Caprioletta's affair, not
mine. I tell you, the matter is settled, fixed, determined; and so am
I, to be married on the same day. I don't know, now I think of it,
whom I can choose better than one of the daughters of my friend
Chromatic."
"A Saxon!" said the aunt, turning up her nose, and was commencing a
vehement remonstrance; but the squire, exclaiming "Music has charms!"
flew over to Mr Chromatic, and, with a hearty slap on the shoulder,
asked him "how he should like him for a son-in-law?" Mr Chromatic,
rubbing his shoulder, and highly delighted with the proposal,
answered, "Very much indeed:" but, proceeding to ascertain which of
his daughters had captivated the squire, the squire demurred, and was
unable to satisfy his curiosity. "I hope," said Mr Chromatic, "it may
be Tenorina; for I imagine Graziosa has conceived a _penchant_ for Sir
Patrick O'Prism."--"Tenorina, exactly," said Squire Headlong; and
became so impatient to bring the matter to a conclusion, that Mr
Chromatic undertook to communicate with his daughter immediately. The
young lady proved to be as ready as the squire, and the preliminaries
were arranged in little more than five minutes.
Mr Chromatic's words, that he imagined his daughter Graziosa had
conceived a _penchant_ for Sir Patrick O'Prism, were not lost on the
squire, who at once determined to have as many companions in the
scrape as possible, and who, as soon as he could tear himself from Mrs
Headlong elect, took three flying bounds across the room to the
baronet, and said, "So, Sir Patrick, I find you and I are going to be
married?"
"Are we?" said Sir Patrick: "then sure won't I wish you joy, and
myself too? for this is the first I have heard of it."
"Well," said Squire Headlong, "I have made up my mind to it, and you
must not disappoint me."
"To be sure I won't, if I can help it," said Sir Patrick; "and I am
very much obliged to you for taking so much trouble off my hands. And
pray, now, who is it that I am to be metamorphosing into Lady
O'Prism?"
"Miss Graziosa Chromatic," said the squire.
"Och violet and vermilion!" said Sir Patrick; "though I never thought
of it before, I dare say she will suit me as well as another: but then
you must persuade the ould Orpheus to draw out a few _notes_ of rather
a more magical description than those he is so fond of scraping on his
crazy violin."
"To be sure he shall," said the squire; and, immediately returning to
Mr Chromatic, concluded the negotiation for Sir Patrick as
expeditiously as he had done for himself.
The squire next addressed himself to Mr Escot: "Here are three couple
of us going to throw off together, with the Reverend Doctor Gaster for
whipper-in: now, I think you cannot do better than make the fourth
with Miss Cephalis; and then, as my father-in-law that is to be would
say, we shall compose a very harmonious octave."
"Indeed," said Mr Escot, "nothing would be more agreeable to both of
us than such an arrangement: but the old gentleman, since I first knew
him, has changed, like the rest of the world, very lamentably for the
worse: now, we wish to bring him to reason, if possible, though we
mean to dispense with his consent, if he should prove much longer
refractory."
"I'll settle him," said Squire Headlong; and immediately posted up to
Mr Cranium, informing him that four marriages were about to take place
by way of a merry winding up of the Christmas festivities.
"Indeed!" said Mr Cranium; "and who are the parties?"
"In the first place," said the squire, "my sister and Mr Foster: in
the second, Miss Graziosa Chromatic and Sir Patrick O'Prism: in the
third, Miss Tenorina Chromatic and your humble servant: and in the
fourth to which, by the by, your consent is wanted----"
"Oho!" said Mr Cranium.
"Your daughter," said Squire Headlong.
"And Mr Panscope?" said Mr Cranium.
"And Mr Escot," said Squire Headlong. "What would you have better? He
has ten thousand virtues."
"So has Mr Panscope," said Mr Cranium; "he has ten thousand a year."
"Virtues?" said Squire Headlong.
"Pounds," said Mr Cranium.
"I have set my mind on Mr Escot," said the squire.
"I am much obliged to you," said Mr Cranium, "for dethroning me from
my paternal authority."
"Who fished you out of the water?" said Squire Headlong.
"What is that to the purpose?" said Mr Cranium. "The whole
process of the action was mechanical and necessary. The application of
the poker necessitated the ignition of the powder: the ignition
necessitated the explosion: the explosion necessitated my sudden
fright, which necessitated my sudden jump, which, from a necessity
equally powerful, was in a curvilinear ascent: the descent, being in a
corresponding curve, and commencing at a point perpendicular to the
extreme line of the edge of the tower, I was, by the necessity of
gravitation, attracted, first, through the ivy, and secondly through
the hazel, and thirdly through the ash, into the water beneath. The
motive or impulse thus adhibited in the person of a drowning man, was
as powerful on his material compages as the force of gravitation on
mine; and he could no more help jumping into the water than I could
help falling into it."
"All perfectly true," said Squire Headlong; "and, on the same
principle, you make no distinction between the man who knocks you down
and him who picks you up."
"I make this distinction," said Mr Cranium, "that I avoid the former
as a machine containing a peculiar _cataballitive_ quality, which I
have found to be not consentaneous to my mode of pleasurable
existence; but I attach no moral merit or demerit to either of them,
as these terms are usually employed, seeing that they are equally
creatures of necessity, and must act as they do from the nature of
their organisation. I no more blame or praise a man for what is called
vice or virtue, than I tax a tuft of hemlock with malevolence, or
discover great philanthropy in a field of potatoes, seeing that the
men and the plants are equally incapacitated, by their original
internal organisation, and the combinations and modifications of
external circumstances, from being any thing but what they are. _Quod
victus fateare necesse est_."
"Yet you destroy the hemlock," said Squire Headlong, "and cultivate
the potato; that is my way, at least."
"I do," said Mr Cranium; "because I know that the farinaceous
qualities of the potato will tend to preserve the great requisites of
unity and coalescence in the various constituent portions of my animal
republic; and that the hemlock, if gathered by mistake for parsley,
chopped up small with butter, and eaten with a boiled chicken, would
necessitate a great derangement, and perhaps a total decomposition, of
my corporeal mechanism."
"Very well," said the squire; "then you are necessitated to like Mr
Escot better than Mr Panscope?"
"That is a _non sequitur_," said Mr Cranium.
"Then this is a _sequitur_," said the squire: "your daughter and Mr
Escot are necessitated to love one another; and, unless you feel
necessitated to adhibit your consent, they will feel necessitated to
dispense with it; since it does appear to moral and political
economists to be essentially inherent in the eternal fitness of
things."
Mr Cranium fell into a profound reverie: emerging from which, he said,
looking Squire Headlong full in the face, "Do you think Mr Escot would
give me that skull?"
"Skull!" said Squire Headlong.
"Yes," said Mr Cranium, "the skull of Cadwallader."
"To be sure he will," said the squire.
"Ascertain the point," said Mr Cranium.
"How can you doubt it?" said the squire.
"I simply know," said Mr Cranium, "that if it were once in my
possession, I would not part with it for any acquisition on earth,
much less for a wife. I have had one: and, as marriage has been
compared to a pill, I can very safely assert that _one is a dose_; and
my reason for thinking that he will not part with it is, that its
extraordinary magnitude tends to support his system, as much as its
very marked protuberances tend to support mine; and you know his own
system is of all things the dearest to every man of liberal thinking
and a philosophical tendency."
The Squire flew over to Mr Escot. "I told you," said he, "I would
settle him: but there is a very hard condition attached to his
compliance."
"I submit to it," said Mr Escot, "be it what it may."
"Nothing less," said Squire Headlong, "than the absolute and
unconditional surrender of the skull of Cadwallader."
"I resign it," said Mr Escot.
"The skull is yours," said the squire, skipping over to Mr Cranium.
"I am perfectly satisfied," said Mr Cranium.
"The lady is yours," said the squire, skipping back to Mr Escot.
"I am the happiest man alive," said Mr Escot.
"Come," said the squire, "then there is an amelioration in the state
of the sensitive man."
"A slight oscillation of good in the instance of a solitary
individual," answered Mr Escot, "by no means affects the solidity of
my opinions concerning the general deterioration of the civilised
world; which when I can be induced to contemplate with feelings of
satisfaction, I doubt not but that I may be persuaded _to be in love
with tortures, and to think charitably of the rack_[14.1]."
Saying these words, he flew off as nimbly as Squire Headlong himself,
to impart the happy intelligence to his beautiful Cephalis.
Mr Cranium now walked up to Mr Panscope, to condole with him on the
disappointment of their mutual hopes. Mr Panscope begged him not to
distress himself on the subject, observing, that the monotonous system
of female education brought every individual of the sex to so
remarkable an approximation of similarity, that no wise man would
suffer himself to be annoyed by a loss so easily repaired; and that
there was much truth, though not much elegance, in a remark which he
had heard made on a similar occasion by a post-captain of his
acquaintance, "that there never was a fish taken out of the sea, but
left another as good behind."
Mr Cranium replied that no two individuals having all the organs of
the skull similarly developed, the universal resemblance of which Mr
Panscope had spoken could not possibly exist. Mr Panscope rejoined;
and a long discussion ensued, concerning the comparative influence of
natural organisation and artificial education, in which the beautiful
Cephalis was totally lost sight of, and which ended, as most
controversies do, by each party continuing firm in his own opinion,
and professing his profound astonishment at the blindness and
prejudices of the other.
In the meanwhile, a great confusion had arisen at the outer doors, the
departure of the ball-visitors being impeded by a circumstance which
the experience of ages had discovered no means to obviate. The grooms,
coachmen, and postillions, were all drunk. It was proposed that the
gentlemen should officiate in their places: but the gentlemen were
almost all in the same condition. This was a fearful dilemma: but a
very diligent investigation brought to light a few servants and a few
gentlemen not above _half-seas-over_; and by an equitable distribution
of these rarities, the greater part of the guests were enabled to set
forward, with very nearly an even chance of not having their necks
broken before they reached home.